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Dear Squeers,

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I confirm my association by telepathy with David in his reply to your observation:

"To begin with, the fact that capitalism's dynamic is endless growth (in a closed system! It blows my mind that the scientists, mathematicians and other serious thinkers I communicate with don't object to this startling equation!), ..."

With David's permission (which, thankfully, I just received by telepathy), I would add that unlike the proverbial captain stoically saluting as his ship slowly sinks to the bottom of the ocean, the smart "capitalists" (the cream of the cream) will have already found an alternative means of transport long before the accident will have occurred.

Capitalism is simply a means, not an end in itself. Also, I don't know if you have noticed, but some people are born survivors. It is not just all luck.

So the order of the day it is capitalism. The "capitalists" will thrash that one to death and then jump off before it is too late. Let's keep our eyes peeled. They might already be doing just that or, at least, quietly preparing their "alternatve means of transport".

You ask:

"Incidentally, can you see how Christianity serves the system, as moral counterweight?"

Not just Christianity. I see that as a function of all religions.

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Dear David F.,

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"I have no reason to think that the Marxist societies would be any better if Marx's recipes were tried with a different cast of characters".

What amazes me is that such a small number of elite can control the totality of humanity. How can that be? Why do the billions accept without a whimper? Are they so happy with their lives?

Perhaps Marx got it wrong somewhere along the way, but perhaps it can be fixed.

Speaking of "Marxist societies" you observe:

"I think they failed because they were rotten from the beginning".
"They have been great successes in corpse production".

To assist me in my reflection, I was wondering if you actually drew up a (preliminary) balance sheet of the amount of rot and the number of corpses produced by the two main political and economic regimes, marxism and capitalism, since their advent?

Also, in relation to your recent exchange with Squeers, with due respect to your stature and seniority, I take the liberty of posting here the follwing phrase of Hegel:

“Since the man of common sense makes his appeal to feeling, to an oracle within his breast, he is finished and done with anyone who does not agree; he only has to explain that he has nothing more to say to anyone who does not find and feel the same in himself. In other words, he tramples underfoot the roots of humanity. For it is in the nature of humanity to press onward to agreement with others; human nature only really exists in an achieved community of minds.”

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Dear Banjo,

Hegel's quote contains: "For it is in the nature of humanity to press onward to agreement with others; human nature only really exists in an achieved community of minds.”

The above is consistent with Hegel's view of freedom. I see it as a recipe for tyranny. Hegel saw freedom as humanity working together as an organic whole in agreement on its eventual goal. The logical consequence of such a view is that the dissenter is an outcast. There is no room in such a society for the person who disagrees with the dominant paradigm.

My view of freedom is different. We don't have to be in agreement. We have to find ways of living together even though we may have different goals and aspirations. Squeers, you and I have different views and we don’t have to be in agreement.

Hegel's view of freedom was undemocratic. He saw society as developing in various stages. He was influenced by Joachim of Fiore who saw society in three stages the stage of the father: Edenic peace, the stage of the son: human conflict, and the stage of the Holy Ghost: the millennium. Hegel also saw society in stages reaching an apotheosis. His apotheosis was the Prussian state.

The followers of Hegel divided into right Hegelians who were predominantly German nationalists and left Hegelians the most prominent being Marx.

Marx’s three stage version of Joachim was primitive communism in an economy of scarcity, class struggle and the advent of capitalism, advanced communism in an economy of plenty.

The followers of the left Hegelians and the right Hegelians produced a great number of corpses and produced more corpses as they met on the battlefields of eastern Europe in WW2.

Hegel’s philosophy is consistent with the statist philosophies of Marxism and fascism. The state will wither away when human kind is in agreement as there is no necessity for it. Conformity reigns supreme.

There should be room for both Squeers and me.

Better Locke and bagel
Than lox and Hegel

Dear Banjo,
I like the quote from Hegel.
Enlightenment thought is of course a dialectic. Kant rationalised Hume, Hegel idealised Kant, and Marx materialised Hegel. Hegel's "human nature only really exists in an achieved community of minds" is a perfect illustration of the latter. In fact, the only real difference between Hegel and Marx is that the former predicates humanity as pure spirit. Marx's materialism is poorly understood, indeed it is not materialism in the sense we have of it today, which is an empty materialism. For Marx, human nature consists in species-being rather than spirit, and the community of minds extends to an organic community of adaptive and aesthetic (or natural) creativity. Such production is Man's adaptive response to material conditions. Where Marx is tricky (and not dissimilar to Hegel), is humanity's creations (mental as well as physical) are ideally extensions of his being, indeed all is 'homologous'. Hegel and Marx work from Aristotelian rather than Humean metaphysics; the former is a philosophy of 'substance' and the latter, abstraction. Ironically, Humean metaphysics underwrite the modern natural sciences; that is, it objectifies, or 'alienates' phenomena which is ‘materialistically’ the media of Man's existence. According to Marx “we do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process. The phantoms formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life-process, which is empirically verifiable and bound to material premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence”.
Our lives under utilitarianism and capitalism are alienated, pointless and barren. That's one reason why religion is a permanent fixture.
Sorry, shouldn't have picked on Christianity above

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Dear David F.,

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"Hegel saw freedom as humanity working together as an organic whole in agreement on its eventual goal. I see it as a recipe for tyranny".

I rather see it as a long term prophesy. I think he was looking at the big picture of mankind, saw where we had come from and tried to imagine where we would finally end up if we continued in the same direction.

You indicate:

"The logical consequence of such a view is that the dissenter is an outcast. There is no room in such a society for the person who disagrees with the dominant paradigm".

In my view, to harbor a different opinion from that of society is the personal decision of a particular individual. Society does not "outcast" the dissenter. The dissenter refuses to follow society.

"The state will wither away when human kind is in agreement as there is no necessity for it. Conformity reigns supreme".

I think Hegel is probably right, in the long term, the State will "wither away" or play a much less dominant role in society than it does today.

Since we separated from our common ancestor with the apes 5 to 7 million years ago we gradually straightened our backs, lost most of our body hair and embarked on an evolutionary process from matter to mind and from family, tribe and society to individual. We are not there yet and still have a long way to go.

If and when this evolutionary process is completed, I would not expect the final result to be that of "conformity". Quite the contrary, I imagine that the individual will have attained a maximum of autonomy and originality.

"There should be room for both Squeers and me".

Well if there's not, David, I could probably put you both up for a few days in my place.

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Dear Squeers,

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Thank you very much for your very interesting and all too brief course on the philosophy of Hegel.

I must confess that I was pretty ignorant of his ideas before I began to participate in these discussions with you and David and really appreciate all that you have both taught me, or should I say, helped me to teach myself.

In these conditions, learning is a delight.

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